Thursday, April 19, 2012

Can one think of responsibility as an
obstacle – personal responsibility?Are
there times when being responsible can hinder a person’s pursuit of their own
happiness or gratification?I think so.

The main character (as discerned by yours
truly) Tom, both narrator and character, in Tennessee William’s “The Glass
Menagerie,” (1270-1313) confronts his sense of responsibility to his mother and
sister.They are an impediment to his
realizing his dreams.His sense of duty
to them holds him prisoner in a slum apartment, whose entry is a fire
escape.Really? And dead- end job.

Near the end of the play, Tom ditches his
responsibilities and runs away in search of his dreams.Yet in his final assessment he realizes he
cannot escape and remains dissatisfied.For Tom, meeting or shirking responsibility left him unfulfilled.

Kessler and Gruber in Malamud’s “The
Mourners” (1585-1589), also have found disappointment in their lives relating
to their relationship with responsibility.It seems easier to see that with Kessler, shown to us as a dirty,
disheveled, slovenly, anti-social character that left his wife and kids and
never looked back.He definitely reaped
what he sowed didn’t he?Gruber’s
conflict with responsibility becomes apparent when Kessler asks him, “What did
I do to you?” He bitterly wept. “Who throws out of his house a man that he
lived there ten years and pays every month on time his rent?What did I do, tell me”Who hurts a man without reason?Are you a Hitler or a Jew?” (1588)He’s actually pressing Gruber to be a
responsible human being, take pity on a fellow man.But Gruber reneges on this responsibility in
favor of his responsibility as landlord.Again at the end of the story the two men come to the shared realization
that their unhappiness is the result of not meeting their responsibilities.

Does that make any sense?In one instance, Tom, meeting responsibility
proves to be a barrier to personal fulfillment but vice versa with Kessler.Maybe; I wonder if maybe the obstacle isn’t
responsibility but selfishness- yeah, that makes more sense to me.What do you think?